Wednesday, June 14, 2006

The noted blogger Fjordman is filing this report as a guest-post at Gates of Vienna.

FrontPage Magazine: You make the shrewd observation of how political correctness engenders evil because of “the violence that it does to people’s souls by forcing them to say or imply what they do not believe, but must not question.” Can you talk about this a bit?

Theodore Dalrymple: Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.

I have heard people who have grown up in former Communist countries say that we in the West are at least as brainwashed by Multiculturalism and Political Correctness as they ever were with Communism, perhaps more so. Even in the heyday of the East Bloc, there were active dissident groups in these countries. The scary thing is, I sometimes believe they are right.

But how is that possible? Don’t we have free speech here? And we have no Gulag?

The simple fact is that we never won the Cold War as decisively as we should have. Yes, the Berlin Wall fell, and the Soviet Union collapsed. This removed the military threat to the West, and the most hardcore, economic Marxism suffered a blow as a credible alternative. However, one of the really big mistakes we made after the Cold War ended was to declare that Socialism was now dead, and thus no longer anything to worry about. Here we are, nearly a generation later, discovering that Marxist rhetoric and thinking have penetrated every single stratum of our society, from the Universities to the media. Islamic terrorism is explained as caused by “poverty, oppression and marginalization,” a classic, Marxist interpretation.

What happened is that while the “hard” Marxism of the Soviet Union may have collapsed, at least for now, the “soft” Marxism of the Western Left has actually grown stronger, in part because we deemed it to be less threatening. The “hard” Marxists had intercontinental nuclear missiles and openly said that they would “bury” us. The soft Marxists talk about tolerance and may seem less threatening, but their goal of overthrowing the evil, capitalist West remains the same. In fact, they are more dangerous precisely because they hide their true goals under different labels. Perhaps we should call it “stealth Socialism” instead of soft Socialism.

One of the readers of Fjordman blog once pointed out that we never had a thorough de-Marxification process after the Cold War, similar to the de-Nazification after WW2. He was thinking of the former Soviet Union and the countries in Eastern Europe, but he should probably have included their Marxist fellow travellers, their sympathizers and apologists in the West. We never fully confronted the ideology of Marxism, and demonstrated that the suffering it caused for hundreds of millions of people was a direct result of Marxist ideas. We just assumed that Marxism was dead and moved on, allowing many of its ideals to mutate into new forms and many of its champions to continue their work uninterrupted, sometimes filled with a vengeance and a renewed zeal for another assault on the capitalist West.

We are now paying the price for this. Not only has Marxism survived, it is thriving and has in some ways grown stronger. Leftist ideas about Multiculturalism and de-facto open borders have achieved a virtual hegemony in public discourse, their critics vilified and demonized. By hiding their intentions under labels such as “anti-racism” and “tolerance,” Leftists have achieved a degree of censorship of public discourse they could never have dreamt of had they openly stated that their intention was to radically transform Western civilization and destroy its foundations.

The Left have become ideological orphans after the Cold War, or perhaps we should call them ideological mercenaries. Although the viable economic alternative to capitalism didn’t work out, their hatred for this system never subsided, it merely transformed into other forms. Multiculturalism is just a different word for “divide and conquer,” pitting various ethnic and cultural groups against each other and destroying the coherence of Western society from within.

At the very least, the people living in the former Communist countries knew and admitted that they were taking part in a gigantic social experiment, and that the media and the authorities were serving them propaganda to shore up support for this project. Yet in the supposedly free West, we are taking part in a gigantic social experiment of Multiculturalism and Muslim immigration every bit as radical, utopian and potentially dangerous as Communism, seeking to transform our entire society from top to bottom, and still we refuse to even acknowledge that this is going on.

In Norway, a tiny Scandinavian nation that was until recently 99% white and Lutheran Christian, native Norwegians will soon be a minority in their own capital city, later in the whole country. And still, Norwegian politicians, journalists and University professors insist that there is nothing to worry about over this. Multiculturalism is nothing new, neither is immigration. In fact, our king a century ago was born in Denmark, so having a capital city dominated by Pakistanis, Kurds, Arabs and Somalis is just business as usual. The most massive transformation of the country in a thousand years, probably in recorded history, is thus treated as if it were the most natural thing in the world. To even hint that there might be something wrong about this has been immediately shouted down as “racism.”

Eric Hoffer has noted that “It is obvious that a proselytizing mass movement must break down all existing group ties if it is to win a considerable following. The ideal potential convert is the individual who stands alone, who has no collective body he can blend with and lose himself in and so mask the pettiness, meaninglessness and shabbiness of his individual existence. Where a mass movement finds the corporate pattern of family, tribe, country, etcetera, in a state of disruption and decay, it moves in and gathers the harvest. Where it finds the corporate pattern in good repair, it must attack and disrupt.” This corresponds exactly to the behavior of much of the Western Left in our age.

In Germany, Hans-Peter Raddatz in his book “Allahs Frauen” (Allah’s Women) dissects the destructive attitude of Multiculturalism that is shared by many civil servants, journalists, politicians and lawyers in Germany and the EU. In particular, he documents how the German Green Party has a program for dismantling and dissolving the Christian “Leitkultur,” or common culture, that so far has been the foundation of Germany and the West. Raddatz thinks that the decades of Muslim immigration are used as an instrument for breaking down the institutions, norms and ideas that the Left has earlier tried to break down through economics. From powerful positions in the media, public institutions and the system of education, these Multiculturalists are working on a larger project of renewing a Western civilization that, according to them, has failed.

A Norwegian newspaper called Dagens Næringsliv exposed the fact that the largest “anti-racist” organization in the country, SOS Rasisme, was heavily infiltrated by Communists and extreme Leftists. They infiltrated the organization in the late 1980s and early ’90s, in other words, during the downfall of Communism in Eastern Europe. They went directly from Communism to Multiculturalism, which should indicate that at least some of them viewed Multiculturalism as the continuation of Communism by other means. It speaks volumes about the close connection between economic Marxism and cultural Marxism. They just have different means of reaching the same ends.

Much of the political Left is simply engaged in outing their opponents as evil, instead of rationally arguing against their ideas. Attaching labels such as “racist” or even “Fascist” to anyone criticizing massive immigration or Multiculturalism has become so common that Norwegian anti-Islamists have coined a new word for it: “Hitling,” which could be roughly translated to English as “to make like Hitler.” The logic behind “hitling” is a bit like this: “You have a beard. Adolf Hitler had facial hair, too, so you must be like Hitler. Adolf Hitler liked dogs. You have pets, too, you must be like Hitler. Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian. You like carrots, you are just like Hitler.”

Any “right-winger” can be slimed with such accusations. Curiously enough, the reverse is almost never true. Although Marxism may have killed 100 million people during the 20th century and failed in every single society in which it has ever been tried out, there seems to be little stigma attached to being a Leftist. The fact that Leftists can get away with this and claim to hold the moral high ground amply demonstrates that we didn’t win the Cold War. We let our guard down after the fall of the Berlin Wall and never properly denounced the ideology behind it. This is now coming back to haunt us.

One member of an anti-immigration party in Britain stated that to be called racist in 21st-century Britain is “the same as being branded a witch in the Middle Ages.” He’s probably right, which means that anti-racism has quite literally become a modern witch-hunt.

Naomi Klein, Canadian activist and author of the book No Logo, is a darling of the Western Left. She claims that the real cause of Islamic terrorism is Western racism, traceable back to the personal experiences of Sayyid Qutb, theorist of modern Islamic Jihad, while in the USA in the late 1940s. “The real problem,” she concludes, “is not too much Multiculturalism but too little.” More Multiculturalism, she claims, “would rob terrorists of what has always been their greatest recruitment tool: our racism.”

Robert Spencer, however, is not too impressed with Klein’s logic or historical knowledge: “Qutb’s world-changing rage?” Is that rage really Qutb’s? Can modern-day Islamic terrorism really be attributed to him, and to his experience of racism in Colorado? One would expect that if that were so, there would be no evidence of political or violent Islam dating from before 1948. But in fact the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Qutb was part, was founded not in 1948 but in 1928, and not by Qutb, but by Hasan Al-Banna. It was Al-Banna, not Qutb, who wrote: “In [Muslim] Tradition, there is a clear indication of the obligation to fight the People of the Book [that is, Jews and Christians], and of the fact that God doubles the reward of those who fight them. Jihad is not against polytheists alone, but against all who do not embrace Islam.”

Paul Berman does not share Klein’s interpretation, either. According to him, Qutb’s book from the 1940’s, Social Justice and Islam,’ shows that, even before his voyage to the USA, Qutb “was pretty well set in his Islamic fundamentalism,” although it may have gotten worse after his meetings with Western “immorality.” According to Berman, the truly dangerous element in American life, in Sayyid Qutb’s estimation, “was not capitalism or foreign policy or racism or the unfortunate cult of women’s independence. The truly dangerous element lay in America’s separation of church and state — the modern political legacy of Christianity’s ancient division between the sacred and the secular.” Islam’s true champions had to gather themselves together into what Qutb in his book Milestones called a vanguard. This vanguard of true Muslims was going to resurrect the caliphate and take Islam to all the world, just as Muhammad had done.” Both Milestones and parts of Qutb’s perhaps most important work, In the Shade of the Qur’an, are available online in English. In Milestones, he writes that Jihad will continue until all of the world answers to Islam, that “Islam came into this world to establish God’s rule on God’s earth.” “Islam has a right to remove all those obstacles which are in its path,” it “has the right to destroy all obstacles in the form of institutions and traditions” around the world that are in opposition to this. “God’s rule on earth can be established only through the Islamic system.” What does this have to do with Western racism? Why did Jihad start a thousand years before Western colonialism ever touched Islamic lands? What about the tens of millions of people massacred in India because of Islamic Jihad? Was that due to Western racism, too? Naomi Klein doesn’t say, she just blames the West. And she is far from the only one suffering from this delusion.

Commenting on the Jihad riots in France in the fall of 2005, philosopher Alain Finkielkraut stated: “In France, they would like very much to reduce these riots to their social dimension, to see them as a revolt of youths from the suburbs against their situation, against the discrimination they suffer from, against the unemployment. The problem is that most of these youths are blacks or Arabs, with a Muslim identity. Look, in France there are also other immigrants whose situation is difficult — Chinese, Vietnamese, Portuguese — and they’re not taking part in the riots. Therefore, it is clear that this is a revolt with an ethno-religious character. These people were treated like rebels, like revolutionaries. (…) They’re ‘interesting.’ They’re ‘the wretched of the earth.’ “Imagine for a moment that they were whites, like in Rostock in Germany. Right away, everyone would have said: ‘Fascism won’t be tolerated.’ When an Arab torches a school, it’s rebellion. When a white guy does it, it’s fascism. Evil is evil, no matter what color it is.”

In an interview with Danish weekly Weekendavisen, Finkielkraut said that: “Racism is the only thing that can still arouse anger among the intellectuals, the journalists and people in the entertainment business, in other words, the elites. Culture and religion have collapsed, only anti-racism is left. And it functions like an intolerant and inhumane idolatry.” “A leader from one of the organizations against racism had the nerve to refer to the actions of the police in the Parisian suburbs as ‘ethnic cleansing.’ That kind of expression used about the French situation indicates a deliberate manipulation of the language. Unfortunately, these insane lies have convinced the public that the destruction in the suburbs should be viewed as a protest against exclusion and racism.” “I think that the lofty idea of ‘the war on racism’ is gradually turning into a hideously false ideology. And this anti-racism will be for the 21st century what communism was for the 20th century: A source of violence.”

Maybe the French have fallen prey to the nihilism of Jean-Paul Sartre? Roger Scruton wrote about his continued influence in The Spectator: “The French have not recovered from Sartre and perhaps never will. For they have had to live with an intellectual establishment that has consistently repudiated the two things that hold the country together: Christianity and the idea of France. The anti-bourgeois posture of the left-bank intellectual has entered the political process, and given rise to an elite for whom nothing is certain save the repudiation of the national idea. It is thanks to this elite that the mad project of European Union has become indelibly inscribed in the French political process, even though the people of France reject it. It is thanks to this elite that the mass immigration into France of unassimilable Muslim communities has been both encouraged and subsidised. It is thanks to this elite that socialism has been so firmly embedded in the French state that no one now can reform it.” “Man cannot live by negation alone.”

Karl Marx himself has stated that “The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism,” a sentiment that corresponds almost exactly to the Islamic idea that “peace” means the absence of opposition to Islamic rule. Cultural Marxism — aka Political Correctness — and Islam share the same totalitarian outlook and instinctively agree in their opposition to free discussion, and in the idea that freedom of speech must be curtailed when it is “offensive” to certain groups. Former Muslim Ali Sina notes that “there is very little difference between the Left and Islam. What is lacking in both these creeds is the adherence to the Golden Rule. Just as for Muslims, everything Islamic is a priori right and good and everything un-Islamic is a priori wrong and evil, for the Left, everything leftist is a priori oppressed and good and everything rightist is a priori oppressor and evil. Facts don’t matter. Justice is determined by who you are and not by what you have done.” “Political correctness is an intellectual sickness. It means expediently lying when telling the truth is not expedient. This practice is so widespread and so common that it is considered to be normal.” Sina also quotes historian Christopher Dawson in writing: “It is easy enough for the individual to adopt a negative attitude of critical skepticism. But if society as a whole abandons all positive beliefs, it is powerless to resist the disintegrating effects of selfishness and private interest. Every society rests in the last resort on the recognition of common principles and common ideals, and if it makes no moral or spiritual appeal to the loyalty of its members, it must inevitably fall to pieces.” This will be the end result of Multiculturalism, and one suspects that this was the point of it to begin with.

Another former Muslim, writer Ibn Warraq, visited Denmark to launch his book Why I am not a Muslim. In an interview, Ibn Warraq stated that especially among the Left there is a post-colonial guilt complex that constitutes an almost insuperable obstacle to any criticism of Islam and Third World cultures. The Left have thus put their own, universal values aside in favor of a dangerous relativism. Ibn Warraq pointed out that more than fifty years after the West left its colonies in the Third World, Leftists are still blaming all the ills of Africa and the Middle East on the former colonial powers, while the same left-wingers only ten years after the fall of Communism blamed Russia’s troubles on unrestrained capitalism. “The Left refuses to seek answers elsewhere. At the same time they are, because of Marx, accustomed to look for economic explanations to everything. Consequently, they seek the explanation to Islamic terrorism in the economic situation. But it is a great mystery to me how 200 dead people in Madrid are supposed to help the poor in the Islamic world.”

Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus, who has personal experience with living under Socialism, warns that it may not be as dead as many seem to think: “We can probably confidently say that its “hard version” – communism – is over.” However, “fifteen years after the collapse of communism I am afraid, more than at the beginning of its softer (or weaker) version, of social-democratism, which has become – under different names, e.g. the welfare state – the dominant model of the economic and social system of current Western civilization. It is based on big and patronizing government, on extensive regulating of human behavior, and on large-scale income redistribution.” “The explicit socialism has lost its appeal and we should not have it as the main rival to our ideas today.” Klaus warns that illiberal ideas are making a comeback in different shapes: “These ideas are, however, in many respects similar to it. There is always a limiting (or constraining) of human freedom, there is always ambitious social engineering, there is always an immodest “enforcement of a good” by those who are anointed (Thomas Sowell) on others against their will.” “The current threats to liberty may use different ‘hats’, they may better hide their real nature, they may be more sophisticated than before, but they are – in principle – the same as always.”

“I have in mind environmentalism (with its Earth First, not Freedom First principle), radical humanrightism (based – as de Jasay precisely argues – on not distinguishing rights and rightism), ideology of ‘civic society’ (or communitarism), which is nothing less than one version of post-Marxist collectivism which wants privileges for organized groups, and in consequence, a refeudalization of society. I also have in mind multiculturalism, feminism, apolitical technocratism (based on the resentment against politics and politicians), internationalism (and especially its European variant called Europeanism) and a rapidly growing phenomenon I call NGOism.”

Vladimir Bukovsky is a former Soviet dissident, author and human rights activist. He was one of the first to expose the use of psychiatric imprisonment against political prisoners in the USSR, and spent a total of twelve years in Soviet prisons. Now living in England, he warns against some of the same anti-democratic impulses in the West, especially in the EU, which he views as a heir to the Soviet Union. In 2002, he joined in on protests against the BBC’s compulsory TV licence, which he considers “such a medieval arrangement I simply must protest against it” “The British people are being forced to pay money to a corporation which suppresses free speech — publicising views they don’t necessarily agree with.” He has blasted the BBC for their “bias and propaganda,” especially on stories related to the EU or the Middle East. “I would like the BBC to become the KGB successors in imprisoning me for demanding freedom of speech. Nothing would expose them more for what they are.”

He is not the only one who is tired of what he thinks is the Leftist bias of the BBC. Michael Gove, a Conservative MP, and political commentator Mark Dooley complain about lopsided coverage of certain issues: “Take, for example, the BBC’s coverage of the late Yasser Arafat. In one profile broadcast in 2002, he was lauded as an “icon” and a “hero,” but no mention was made of his terror squads, corruption, or his brutal suppression of dissident Palestinians. Similarly, when Israel assassinated the spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, in 2004, one BBC reporter described him as “polite, charming and witty, a deeply religious man.” This despite the fact that under Yassin’s guidance, Hamas murdered hundreds.” “A soft left worldview influences too much of what the corporation produces. We have a right to expect more honesty from the broadcasting service we are being asked to pay for.”

Vladimir Bukovsky thinks that the West lost the Cold War. “There were no Nuremberg-type trials in Moscow. Why? Because while we won the Cold War in a military sense, we lost it in the context of ideas. The West stopped one day too soon, just like in Desert Storm. Just imagine the Allies in 1945 being satisfied with some kind of Perestroika in Nazi Germany — instead of unconditional surrender. What would have been the situation in Europe then, to say nothing of Germany? All former Nazi collaborators would have remained in power, albeit under a new disguise. This is exactly what happened in the Soviet Union in 1991.” “Communism might have been dead, but the communists remained in power in most of the former Warsaw bloc countries, while their Western collaborators came to power all over the world (in Europe in particular). This is nothing short of a miracle: the defeat of the Nazis in 1945 quite logically brought a shift to the Left in world politics, while a defeat of communism in 1991 brought again a shift to the Left, this time quite illogically.” “It is no surprise, therefore, that despite the defeat of communism, the radical Left in the West still arrogates the moral high ground to itself.”

“When the Nazis lost the Second World War, racial hatred was discredited. When the Soviets lost the Cold War, the tenet of class hatred remained as popular as ever.” Bukovsky argues that while there might have been a Western military victory, Socialism still prevailed as a popular idea ideologically throughout the world. He writes: “Having failed to finish off conclusively the communist system, we are now in danger of integrating the resulting monster into our world. It may not be called communism anymore, but it retained many of its dangerous characteristics. . . .Until the Nuremberg-style tribunal passes its judgement on all the crimes committed by communism, it is not dead and the war is not over.”

Cultural Marxism has roots as far back as the 1920s, when some Socialist thinkers advocated attacking the cultural base of Western civilization to pave the way for the Socialist transition. Cultural Marxism is thus not something “new.” It has coexisted with economic Marxism for generations, but it received a great boost in the West from the 1960s and 70s onwards. As the Soviet Union fell apart and China embraced capitalism, the economic Marxists joined in on the “cultural” train, too, as it was now the only game in town. They don’t have a viable alternative to present, but they don’t care. They truly believe that we, the West, are so evil and exploitative that literally anything would be better, even the Islamic Caliphate.

The Free Congress Foundation has an interesting booklet online called Political Correctness: A Short History of an Ideology, edited by William S. Lind. According to Lind, Political Correctness “wants to change behavior, thought, even the words we use. To a significant extent, it already has.” “Whoever or whatever controls language also controls thought.” “Political Correctness” is in fact cultural Marxism. The effort to translate Marxism from economics into culture did not begin with the student rebellion of the 1960s. It goes back at least to the 1920s and the writings of the Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci. In 1923, in Germany, a group of Marxists founded an institute devoted to making the translation, the Institute of Social Research (later known as the Frankfurt School). One of its founders, George Lukacs, stated its purpose as answering the question, “Who shall save us from Western Civilization?” Lind thinks there are major parallels between classical and cultural Marxism: “Both are totalitarian ideologies. The totalitarian nature of Political Correctness can be seen on [University] campuses where ‘PC’ has taken over the college: freedom of speech, of the press, and even of thought are all eliminated.” “Today, with economic Marxism dead, cultural Marxism has filled its shoes. The medium has changed, but the message is the same: a society of radical egalitarianism enforced by the power of the state.”

“Just as in classical economic Marxism certain groups, i.e. workers and peasants, are a priori good, and other groups, i.e., the bourgeoisie and capital owners, are evil. In the cultural Marxism of Political Correctness certain groups are good,” for instance feminist women. Similarly, “white males are determined automatically to be evil, thereby becoming the equivalent of the bourgeoisie in economic Marxism.” Both economic and cultural Marxism “have a method of analysis that automatically gives the answers they want. For the classical Marxist, it’s Marxist economics. For the cultural Marxist, it’s deconstruction. Deconstruction essentially takes any text, removes all meaning from it and re-inserts any meaning desired.”

Raymond V. Raehn agrees with Lind that “Political Correctness is Marxism, with all that implies: loss of freedom of expression, thought control, inversion of the traditional social order and, ultimately, a totalitarian state.” According to him, “Gramsci envisioned a long march through the society’s institutions, including the government, the judiciary, the military, the schools and the media.” “He also concluded that so long as the workers had a Christian soul, they would not respond to revolutionary appeals.” Another one of the early cultural Marxists, Georg Lukacs, noted that “Such a worldwide overturning of values cannot take place without the annihilation of the old values and the creation of new ones by the revolutionaries.” At a meeting in Germany in 1923, “Lukacs proposed the concept of inducing “Cultural Pessimism” in order to increase the state of hopelessness and alienation in the people of the West as a necessary prerequisite for revolution.”

William S. Lind points out that this cultural Marxism had its beginnings after the Marxist Revolution in Russia in 1917 failed to take roots in other countries. Marxists tried to analyze the reasons for this, and found them in Western civilization and culture itself. “Gramsci said the workers will never see their true class interests, as defined by Marxism, until they are freed from Western culture, and particularly from the Christian religion – that they are blinded by culture and religion to their true class interests. Lukacs, who was considered the most brilliant Marxist theorist since Marx himself, said in 1919, “Who will save us from Western Civilization?”

John Fonte describes how this cultural war is now being played out in the USA in his powerful piece “Why There Is A Culture War: Gramsci and Tocqueville in America.” According to him, “beneath the surface of American politics an intense ideological struggle is being waged between two competing worldviews. I will call these “Gramscian” and “Tocquevillian” after the intellectuals who authored the warring ideas — the twentieth-century Italian thinker Antonio Gramsci, and, of course, the nineteenth-century French intellectual Alexis de Tocqueville. The stakes in the battle between the intellectual heirs of these two men are no less than what kind of country the United States will be in decades to come.”

Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), Marxist intellectual and politician, “believed that it was necessary first to delegitimize the dominant belief systems of the predominant groups and to create a “counter-hegemony” (i.e., a new system of values for the subordinate groups) before the marginalized could be empowered. Moreover, because hegemonic values permeate all spheres of civil society — schools, churches, the media, voluntary associations — civil society itself, he argued, is the great battleground in the struggle for hegemony, the “war of position.” From this point, too, followed a corollary for which Gramsci should be known (and which is echoed in the feminist slogan) — that all life is “political.” Thus, private life, the work place, religion, philosophy, art, and literature, and civil society, in general, are contested battlegrounds in the struggle to achieve societal transformation.” This, according to Fonte, “is the very core of the Gramscian-Hegelian world view — group-based morality, or the idea that what is moral is what serves the interests of “oppressed” or “marginalized” ethnic, racial, and gender groups.” “The concept of ‘internalized oppression’ is the same as the Hegelian-Marxist notion of ‘false consciousness,’ in which people in the subordinate groups ‘internalize’(and thus accept) the values and ways of thinking of their oppressors in the dominant groups.” “This is classic Hegelian-Marxist thinking — actions (including free speech) that ‘objectively’ harm people in a subordinate class are unjust (and should be outlawed).”

He tracks how the ideas of Gramsci and cultural Marxists have spread throughout Western academia. Law professor Catharine MacKinnon writes in Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (1989), “The rule of law and the rule of men are one thing, indivisible,” because “State power, embodied in law, exists throughout society as male power.” Furthermore, “Male power is systemic. Coercive, legitimated, and epistemic, it is the regime.” MacKinnon has argued that sexual harassment is essentially an issue of power exercised by the dominant over the subordinate group.” At an academic conference sponsored by the University of Nebraska, “the attendees articulated the view that ‘White students desperately need formal “training” in racial and cultural awareness. The moral goal of such training should override white notions of privacy and individualism.’”

This can sometimes amount to virtual brainwashing disguised as critical thinking. Fonte mentions that at Columbia University, “new students are encouraged to get rid of ‘their own social and personal beliefs that foster inequality.’ To accomplish this, the assistant dean for freshmen, Katherine Balmer, insists that ‘training’ is needed. At the end of freshmen orientation at Bryn Mawr in the early 1990s, according to the school program, students were ‘breaking free’ of ‘the cycle of oppression’ and becoming ‘change agents.’ Syracuse University’s multicultural program is designed to teach students that they live ‘in a world impacted by various oppression issues, including racism.’”

John Fonte thinks that the primary resistance to the advance of cultural Marxism in the USA comes from an opposing quarter he dubs “contemporary Tocquevillianism.” “Its representatives take Alexis de Tocqueville’s essentially empirical description of American exceptionalism and celebrate the traits of this exceptionalism as normative values to be embraced.” As Tocqueville noted in the 1830s, Americans today are “just as in Tocqueville’s time, are much more individualistic, religious, and patriotic than the people of any other comparably advanced nation.” “What was particularly exceptional for Tocqueville (and contemporary Tocquevillians) is the singular American path to modernity. Unlike other modernists, Americans combined strong religious and patriotic beliefs with dynamic, restless entrepreneurial energy that emphasized equality of individual opportunity and eschewed hierarchical and ascriptive group affiliations.”

This battle is now being played out in most American public institutions. “Tocquevillians and Gramscians clash on almost everything that matters. Tocquevillians believe that there are objective moral truths applicable to all people at all times. Gramscians believe that moral ‘truths’ are subjective and depend upon historical circumstances. Tocquevillians believe in personal responsibility. Gramscians believe that ‘the personal is political.’ In the final analysis, Tocquevillians favor the transmission of the American regime; Gramscians, its transformation.”

“While economic Marxism appears to be dead, the Hegelian variety articulated by Gramsci and others has not only survived the fall of the Berlin Wall, but also gone on to challenge the American republic at the level of its most cherished ideas. For more than two centuries America has been an ‘exceptional’ nation, one whose restless entrepreneurial dynamism has been tempered by patriotism and a strong religious-cultural core. The ultimate triumph of Gramscianism would mean the end of this very ‘exceptionalism.’ America would at last become Europeanized: statist, thoroughly secular, post-patriotic, and concerned with group hierarchies and group rights in which the idea of equality before the law as traditionally understood by Americans would finally be abandoned. Beneath the surface of our seemingly placid times, the ideological, political, and historical stakes are enormous.”

Britain’s Anthony Browne writes in The Retreat of Reason of how the Politically Correct are more intolerant of dissent than traditional liberals or conservatives, since Liberals of earlier times “accepted unorthodoxy as normal. Indeed the right to differ was a datum of classical liberalism. The Politically Correct do not give that right a high priority. It distresses their programmed minds. Those who do not conform should be ignored, silenced or vilified. There is a kind of soft totalitarianism about Political Correctness.” “Because the politically correct believe they are not just on the side of right, but of virtue, it follows that those they are opposed to are not just wrong, but malign. In the PC mind, the pursuit of virtue entitles them to curtail the malign views of those they disagree with.” “People who transgress politically correct beliefs are seen not just as wrong, to be debated with, but evil, to be condemned, silenced and spurned.” “The rise of political correctness represents an assault on both reason and liberal democracy.” Browne defines Political Correctness as “an ideology that classifies certain groups of people as victims in need of protection from criticism, and which makes believers feel that no dissent should be tolerated.” He also warns that “Good intentions pave the road to hell. The world is not short of good intentions, but it is too often short of good reasoning.”

However, Anthony Browne focuses more in the geopolitical situation to explain the rise of PC than on Marxist strategies: “Political correctness is essentially the product of a powerful but decadent civilisation which feels secure enough to forego reasoning for emoting, and to subjugate truth to goodness. However, the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001, and those that followed in Bali, Madrid and Beslan, have led to a sense of vulnerability that have made people far more hard-headed about the real benefits and drawbacks of Western civilisation.”

“To some extent, the rise of the eastern powers, China and India, will ensure in coming decades that western guilt will shrivel: finally having equal powers to compare ourselves to, the West will no longer feel inclined to indulge in self-loathing, but will seek to reaffirm its sense of identity. (…) in the long-run of history, political correctness will be seen as an aberration in Western thought. The product of the uniquely unchallenged position of the West and its unrivalled affluence, the comparative decline of the West compared to the East is likely to spell the demise of political correctness.”

Lee Harris in his article “Why Isn’t Socialism Dead?” ponders whether Socialism isn’t dead because Socialism can’t die. The Peruvian economist, Hernando de Soto, has argued in his book, The Mystery of Capital, that the failure of the various socialist experiments of the twentieth century has left mankind with only one rational choice about which economic system to go with, namely, capitalism. However, says Harris, “the revolutionary socialist’s life is transformed because he accepts the myth that one day socialism will triumph, and justice for all will prevail.” Thus there is “an...analogy between religion and the revolutionary Socialism which aims at the apprenticeship, preparation, and even the reconstruction of the individual — a gigantic task.” “It may well be that socialism isn’t dead because socialism cannot die. Who doesn’t want to see the wicked and the arrogant put in their place? Who among the downtrodden and the dispossessed can fail to be stirred by the promise of a world in which all men are equal, and each has what he needs?”

Maybe Socialism is a bit like the flu: It keeps mutating, and as soon as your immune system has defeated one strain, it changes just enough so that your body does not recognize it and then mounts another attack.

Political Correctness can reach absurd levels. Early in June 2006, Canadian police arrested a group of men suspected of planning terror attacks. The group was alleged to have been “well-advanced on its plan” to attack a number of Canadian institutions, among them the Parliament of Canada, including a possible beheading of the Prime Minister, and Toronto’s subway. However, the lead paragraph of newspaper Toronto Star’s story on the arrests was: “In investigators’ offices, an intricate graph plotting the links between the 17 men and teens charged with being members of a homegrown terrorist cell covers at least one wall. And still, says a source, it is difficult to find a common denominator.” Royal Canadian Mounted Police Assistant Commissioner Mike McDonell said that the suspects were all Canadian residents and the majority were citizens. “They represent the broad strata of our community. Some are students, some are employed, some are unemployed,” he said. However, there was one common denominator for the suspects that wasn’t mentioned: They were all Muslims. The front page article in the New York Times (June 4), too, was a study in how to avoid using the dreaded “M” word. The terrorist suspects were referred to as “Ontario residents,” “Canadian residents,” “the group,” “mainly of South Asian descent” or “good people.” Everything conceivable, just not as “Muslims.”

Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair noted proudly during the press conference following the arrests, “I would remind you that there was not one single reference made by law enforcement to Muslim or Muslim community.” Before launching the anti-terror raids, Canadian police received “sensitivity training” and were carefully instructed in Islamic traditions such as handling the Koran, the use of prayer mats, and blowing oneself up in the course of an arrest. As Charles Johnson of blog Little Green Footballs noted: “Do the Canadian police extend such considerations to Christian, Jewish, Hindu or other faiths? If they don’t, then the Moslems have already won important recognition as a ‘special’ people.” Commenting on the arrests, the Globe and Mail stated that “It may have been the most politically correct terrorism bust in history.” Canada’s secret security apparatus had been “putting serious effort into softening its image” among Muslims for much of the previous years.

The federal government in Canada was considering changes to the Anti-Terrorism Act to make it clear that police and security agents did not engage in religious profiling. The Calgary Sun interviewed a Canadian criminologist, Professor Mahfooz Kanwar, who stated that “Multiculturalism has been bad for unity in Canada. It ghettoizes people, makes them believe, wrongly, that isolating themselves and not adapting to their new society is OK. It is not.” “Political correctness threatens us because we can’t fight something we refuse to label and understand.” Kanwar said the amount of political correctness during the arrests of 17 Muslims in the Toronto area was “sickening.” “Political correctness has gone too far. Political correctness threatens our society,” said the Pakistani-born Kanwar. “It is the responsibility of the minorities to adjust to the majority, not the other way around,” added Kanwar. Meanwhile, the Canadian Islamic Congress blamed the Canadian government for not showering enough money on the problem. They wanted more funding for research “to scientifically diagnose problems and devise solutions.”

They also wanted a nation-wide “Smart Integration program,” whatever that means. Given the fact that Muslims in Canada had quite recently been pushing for the partial implementation of sharia laws in the country, one would suspect that “smart integration” would mean that non-Muslims should demonstrate a little more appeasement. After all, if Canadian authorities listen to the advice of their compatriot Naomi Klein, these planned mass-killings of Canadian civilians were all due to Canadian racism and because the country wasn’t Multicultural enough. Muslims want to kill Canadians, Canadians smile back, tell them how much they “respect” them and ask what more they can do to please them.

This is what Political Correctness leads to in the end. It’s not funny and it’s not a joke. Political Correctness kills. It has already killed thousands of Western civilians, and if left unchecked it may soon kill entire nations or, in the case of Europe, entire continents.

As I have stated before, Islam is only a secondary infection, one that we could otherwise have had the strength to withstand. Cultural Marxism has weakened the West and made us ripe for a takeover. It is cultural AIDS, eating away at our immune system until it is too weak to resist Islamic infiltration attempts. It must be destroyed, before it destroys us all.

The Leftist-Islamic alliance will have profound consequences. Either they will defeat the West, or they will both go down in the fall. We never really won the Cold War as decisively as we should have done. Marxism was allowed to endure, and mount another attack on us by stealth and proxy. However, this flirting with Muslims could potentially prove more devastating to Marxists than the fall of the Berlin Wall.

As William S. Lind points out: “While the hour is late, the battle is not decided. Very few Americans realize that Political Correctness is in fact Marxism in a different set of clothes. As that realization spreads, defiance will spread with it. At present, Political Correctness prospers by disguising itself. Through defiance, and through education on our own part (which should be part of every act of defiance), we can strip away its camouflage and reveal the Marxism beneath the window-dressing of “sensitivity,” “tolerance” and “multiculturalism.”

Political Correctness is Marxism with a nose job. Multiculturalism is not about tolerance or diversity, it is an anti-Western hate ideology designed to dismantle Western civilization. If we can demonstrate this, an important part of the battle has already been won.

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comments:

Sadly, the flu mutates so readily because the disease comes not from without, but within. There will never be a generation to completely defeat their demons-- only hold on honorably until their children take to the field.

Truth is a cudgel; this was a sound beating. When you shine analysis on them and shame them, eventually they will be forced to retreat to remold their faces. As the masthead says, "a new phase of a very old war." Older than 1989, or 1683, or 622.

The devil, being an unctuous enemy, has a way of slipping through the fingers of the just.

One other Tocquevillian qaulity in the American character is its generosity. Wherever two or three Americans are gathered together, at least two are thinking up some voluntary organization that would benefit the community. Thus our voluntary firemen and neighbors who band together to clean their section of the roadway, or the fund-raising for someone's hospital care...

Definitely, we have a voluntary spirit -- we do not expect the state to take care of everything and thus will never have the situation of 15,000 old people dying in a month while their children went on vacation, as shamefully happened in France. Those vacationers will be old one day and it will be their turn and a hot August will find them alone...

**************

The socialist spirit lives because it's the secular replacement for a belief in the transcendent, a yearning for an over-arching meaning that will not wither.

For that matter, the state ain't gonna wither, either. Implode, maybe, given its carcenogenic rate of growth -- but wither? Nope.

There's an interesting progression, as though marxism has come in waves. The first one, of course, was economic marxism, which primarily opposed Capitalism and the U.S. When that was defeated, cultural marxism was already waiting in the wings, coming to prominence now in alignment with the islamists against all of western civilization.

This too, I have absolutely no doubt, will be defeated. But if you look closely, you see that the successor is already being groomed: you could call it biological, or perhaps ecological marxism. Earth First! for instance, or the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. With them, the ideology of 'oppressors vs the oppressed' names the entire human species as the enemy, and ultimately advocates human extinction (or at the very least, the dieback of 99% of the world's population as we all revert back to the pleistocene.)

While the cultural marxists should of course be attacked, we should spare a thought or two as to how we will deal with the inevitable transfer to ecological marxism. They will represent a far more dire threat: the first wave used economic weapons (strikes, labor unions), the second cultural weapons (PC, deconstruction, etc). I'd bet the third wave will use biological weapons.

Thank you, Baron. "Divide and Conquer" is an apt metaphor for Multiculturalism especially when one considers how it operates. While on the surface encouraging of "respect" for others' cultures, Multiculturalism actually encourages people to stay within their assigned cultural boxes administered by designated spokespeople. Thus, if you want the "Muslim perspective" in the United States you have to go to CAIR. Or if you want to get the African American experience you have to go to Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton. Or that the suburbs of France operate according to different laws than the rest of that country. There are countless similar examples, that could perhaps chalk up to the simple logistic difficulty of sampling mass opinion, if it weren't for the deep hostility Multiculturalism holds for anyone who contradicts those in their own culture box. Go ask Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

In the end, while it is largely the same cadre of useful idiots who animated Marxism in the West for decades, I do believe that Multiculturalism was bred for a different purpose: simple social control. The cultural elite seek to ghettoize us, making bargains rewarding selected Multicultural spokespeople in return for cooptation of their respective boxes, and anyone who questions the artificial walls is branded as boorish and racist.

Very nice treatment. This stealth substitution of socialist values for individualist values has apparently been long in planning and execution. How nice to see it brought out into the open.

Leftism has indeed grown rigid and intolerant over the past two or three decades. To me, anyone who has not read Orwell's "1984" is not educated. And it is inconceivable to me that someone who has read 1984 would tolerate political correctness at all.

Socialism is part of human evolution, so it will never die. Socialism is one of the "strange attractors" that societies are perpetually drawn to, over the past 10,000 years or so. It is buried in the genetic memory somehow and goes with humans wherever they go, even to other star systems. Of course, capitalism pays the bills

Theodore Dalrymple: Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small... [T]he purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity.

I've always said that the PC indoctrination of the young had less to do with changing hearts and minds, and more to do with stifling and (more importantly) isolating dissenters. Conformity is the primary goal. Convincing people of the rightness of PC concepts need never occur.

When, in the 70's, the left devolved into "affinity groups" and began to get CETA jobs and everyone began to talk about "the long march" rather than "the revolution", I wondered if they could sustain. By 1985 I knew that at least some of them were taking over administrative and teaching roles in the county education system. By 1995, many, who used to wave the Little Red Book while disrupting classes were county and city government administrators and had begun the process of purging unbelievers. Others had started non-traditional businesses or had become professionals of some type. Now our schools, and governments as well as our many of our cultural institutions are run by people who now feel safe to be overtly hostile to American values.

Want to get labeled as a paranoid? Simply keep mentioning this pheonomena for about thirty five years. The water is now boiling and the frog is well and truly cooked.

The sad part is that, after decades of European anti-Americanism, many of us in America care not what happens to Europe. If Europeans hope that, yet again, Americans will die to save Europeans from themselves, they are mistaken.

I think this is a massive amount of truth, yet it only allows half the story to be told. Stating the left's aim does not explain how multiculturalism has got to be so pervasive. We also need to recognise the culpability of the Western right wing.

One reason is the right wing acts pragmatically to find a low cost source of labour to sustain economic growth. For this we need immigrants and in Europe's case the only ones wanting to live there are Muslims. Multi-culturism is attractive to immigrants and it benefits economies with declining populations to have their need for immigrants filled as quickly as possible - rich capitalist economy derives short term benefit from multi-culturalism.

Well said. I have had the kernel of this idea, but nothing to match your treatment. I have thought of post-American liberalism (multiculturalism, feminism, environmentalism, pacificism, internationalism, secularism and redistributionism) as the Ghost of Marx, rather than the Revenge of Marxism, but the point is the same. Well, said.

Thank you for nicely documenting and illustrating things that I have passively known for some time. When I was studying the humanities in graduate school, I often wondered at what I thought was the silliness of spending all that time reading marxist theory and marxist-inspired thinkers, but of course I didn't dare give voice to that supposedly simple-minded heresy. It wasn't until a few years later, when I was actually teaching at a small college, when I realized that my fellow faculty members were no more capable of producing well-reasoned and well-informed arguments for their positions than most of my students were. Sure, they were a lot more sophisticated in their approach, but they often didn't know the facts of the topics they opined about, and they often hadn't mastered the intricacies of logical fallacies, and yet this didn't stop them from looking down on anyone who dared to disagree or to question their reactionary, left-wing arguments. It is so tiring and so discouraging, and yet, so real.

This is an exceptional essay Fjordman. Ali Sina's comment that, "there is very little difference between the Left and Islam." I've come to the same conclusion and have to say that it explains why these two diametrically opposed ideologies work so well together. Marxists and Muslims suffer from monomania over the corruption of Western society, differing in the formal cause, and because of this corruption, Western civilization must be destroyed. Though they may argue a great deal over how to accomplish this end, such as whether to stifle free speech through physical or social intimidation, their alliance will not soon be broken. I grant, of course, that should they succeed, they would turn their sharpened knives on each other. Now while it's amusing to imagine Mohammed and Marx slashing away at each other over a corpse, a fight full of bearded brutality, it's not so amusing knowning the West to be the corpse.

One more thing, Fjordman, there's been one nagging question that has troubled me since I began to see the magnitude of the problem: Why have things reached this point? I know the trivial answers: Europe lost the Faith; the Faith lost Europe; Europe lost faith in itself; Europe picked up a new faith, Marxism; Europe returned to its pagan roots; Europe finally lost all of its pagan roots... I know that I've left out a few dozen such explanations, but the problem with all of these explanations is that they really don't explain. For instance, the first theory states that Europe lost the Faith and so went off the tracks, but the interesting questions is then why Europe choose to lose Faith. The other explanations have this sort of ephemeral quality in that when you really examine them you are just lead on to another question. Not one of these explanations has a primal quality to them, like a man admitting he killed Jones because he hated Jones or because Jones held a gun up to the woman he loved. So Fjordman, I ask in in all humility, what do you believe this primal human quality was that caused Europe to go so far down the road to suicide?

(By the way, should anyone get the idea that I'm simply asking difficult questions and making no attempt to answer them, like some rascally sophist, I'll state what I believe to be the primal reason: Hatred of Church, the Church including both Catholics and Protestants.)

unaha-closp and his post are another part of the equation that Fjordman posted so eloquently about. You will note it is the typical propaganda that spews forth from the leftists.

First he mentions "right wingers" and in his sentance plays the "moral equivalency" game. He, if he were pushed would compare "right wingers" to Nazis and call them "racists". I guarantee you he would for that is in their propaganda manual.

Anytime someone like him starts out with any mention of "right wingers" you know the BS that is to follow. And, sure enough, he was true to form.

He mentions "low cost workers" implying that these people are slaves by his tone. (Guess he would much rather have the Marxist/Maoist/Communist work camps and gulags back-they were a great source of really cheap workers.)

Then he brings in the old "we need more workers" implying that we need to essentially open our borders-to everyone without exercising any control over our own borders. To exert any control over immigration in his mind is "racist" and if pushed on the subject you can expect him to call you one.

He then brings up the old LLL chestnut that states "Europe's only source of immigrants is Islamists". Um, no. In case unaha-closp is not aware of it there are plenty of people from non Islamic countries that immigrate to Europe yearly and become productive citizens, unlike the bloodsucking, welfare queen Islamists.

Then he has the gonads to say that multiculturalism is beneficial! Um, cite ONE example of sucessful multiculturalism unaha-closp. Just one. And do not attemt to use the United States as the example because we are not and never have been a "multicultural" country.

Although this is a very nice piece, I suggest that political correctness as it has burgeoned in the West during the last 30 years is better described as velvet totalitarianism rather than "the revenge of Marxism". It's true that most of the fuel for political correctness has come from the left, but the funndamental enemy of what Sharansky called a "free" society is totalitarianism (of the left, right, or middle).

In papers available in the Academic Freedom section of my web (www.psych.utoroonto.ca/~furedy) I have written about as well as defined velvet totalitarianism, and the concept is quite similar to how the piece describes political correctness. And while I have focused on universities, I think this focus is relevant for society at large, for no society can be free if academic are not prepared to defend the academic freedom of even those whose opinions disgust them.

John, the thing you may have missed is that leftism nearly always leads to totalitarianism in a way that rightism simply doesn't. The leftist milleu is pre4dicated on the idea of control - of thoughts, words, deeds, capital and all of the above - via the apparatus of the state, whereas rightism is about self-control, individualism, seperate from the state. In fact with no reference to "the state" as a classical marxist would understand it at all. I imagine it's easy to demonstrate that many "right wing" dictators were really rather more left-wing than we give them credit. At the very least, Hitler, who is often mentioned in teh same breath as "right wing", was very much a socialist. More in the mould of Engels than Marx, and nationalist rather than internationalist, but entirely left-wing. This is teh danger we face, you see; we assume that totalitarian regimes must somehow be "right wing" in some way, because we've spent the last 60 years being sold the lie that Hitler and his associates were right-wing fascists. Personally I don't believe that it's possible to be a truly totalitarian right-winger, as totalitarianism goes against so much of the grain of right-wing thought.

PC is self correcting. It gives everyone who goes to a PC school a taste of Stalinism. Far from worrying about these idiots we ought to be encouraging them.

Communism/socialism is dead. The body will not be buried until the stink is ever more severe.

BTW the whole PC thing will be killed by its own contradictions. Like trying to decide which suffering of whose ancestors gains the most merit. Note that Jews will not be included. As usual they so excell in this department that ordinary folks cannot compete. Since it isn't fair, they will be excluded.

Nahanni - gastarbeiters imported into Germany in the 1950s and 1960s solved a labour crisis amd allowed for expansion of German industry. Turks were imported and given on the job training as factory assembly workers doing jobs it was impossible to find sufficient Germans for aduring Wirtschaftswunder. This was an immediate gain benficial to capitalism, as different from the longterm problems caused by having 3 million knuckle dragging Islamists in Germany today.

Speaking of knuckle dragging idiots perhaps you should look about and see if you can spot the 12 million wetbacks doing low paid work in your country. And your right wing government that is so keen to get them to stay that it proposes multiculturalism in the form of a guest worker program and ammnesty for these illegal aliens.

I'm not saying that multiculturalism is a good idea, all I mean is that it can provide short term economic gain and so has been embraced by capitalists. Longterm it is about as stupid as you can get. (Short of declaring yourselves to be in a "benign security environment" and pledging the entire military budget of your country to assisting the UN...)

Good article.I'm from ex-comunist country. In my country people demand a trial of comunism. Can you guess who is not agree with this idea ? Why is not possible the comunist trial ?Well, some things must be done, no mater who is against. And it will. Even EU parlament opose the idea, in my country has been decided that the trial of comunism must take place.

unaha-closp makes a valid point but incorrectly labels capitalists as "right wingers". George Soros is most definitely a capitalist but he is no more a rightwinger than Hitler, or Juan and Eva Peron. Whether socialism is of the Marxist variety (i.e., state ownership of all wealth) or of the corporatist-socialist ilk (i.e., private ownership with state control) is a distinction without a difference. The results for the common man are identical: totalitarianism, lack of economic mobility and advancement, diminution/elimination of property rights, and stifling bureaucratic managerialism. Ever wonder why it is the Democrat liberals on the SCOTUS and in Congress who favor the abuse of eminent domain for the benefit of private profit?

The socialist-corporatist model favors the ϋber capitalist by effectively limiting competition from more efficient, upstart companies. A large retail chain can open a branch where there is no hope of turning a profit, merely to keep the brand before the public. They then have a place to bury the dead wood they are forced to hire--or prevented from firing--by affirmative action policies & etc. The costs of environmental regs, mandated benefit packages (like Family and Medical Leave), and higher taxes can much more easily be absorbed by a large corporation than by a family owned business which operates on the razor edge of profit/loss. A small business owner may make a conscious decision to limit his company's growth so as to avoid compliance with regulations to which a larger business would be subject. While faux-populist politicians decry the merger mania of big business, it is the policies they promote which creates the favorable environment for consolidation, centralization, and globalization.

This somewhat explains why so many billionaires love the Clintons and their statist ways. Capitalism is not the enemy of statist socialism; free enterprise and property rights are the enemy of statist socialism.

Fjordman - a really excellent essay. Its one of those articles which one would have wanted to write oneself, but don't have 1/10 the talent.

It pleases me to see William Lind's important work on the history of PC as cultural marxism to be more widely spread. Fjordmans post does a great job of popularising this, and expanding on thism and on a point repeatedly discussed at Gates of Vienna and elsewhere - that Islamism is merely an opportunistic infection of a diseased body politic.

However, Islam and political correctness/cultural marxism is in turn part of a wider sickness in Western society. There is another layer of ilness underlying, illness that permits pc to flourish - the whole liberal anti-traditional anti-christian mindset of the West. Fjordman has touched on this in the past, as has Brussels Journal's Paul Belien, but I notice commentators here and on LGF have mentioned other writers - Shelby Steele, Robert Spencer, Mark Steyn. Lawrence Auster on the excellent View from the Right website, with impeccable logic and direct thinking at length demonstrates that even the aforementioned conservative writers have internalised liberal assumptions, and are in the end accordingly stumbling blindly. The same can be said of Jyllandposten editor Flemming Rose (of Mohammed cartoon fame)- who has betrayed his less than sterling motives in publishing the cartoons.

Anyway, bravo Fjordman. This post should be republished in newspapers across the western world, and would be if the MSM didn't suck. But The MSM, thats another story - the vector that transmits PC.

across europe 15% of the people go to church. europe's future is not in christianity. christianity is dead and there goes any challenge to the nihilist garbage parading itself around.

nor is eu the answer.

europe needs a native philosophy of decency that is not nihilist and not marxist.

only philosophies holding themselves out as 'decent' win. that's why marxism and islam have so much success. even if they promote closed-mindedness, they do it 'decently.'

i frankly dont think europe is capable of producing such a philosophy. it is exhausted. it has no faith. it has no pride. it can't even give birth, for god's sake. who the hell has negative birth rates?

fjordman, you might be the last echoe of an empty hall. move to america.

the only hope i see is that europeam muslims could be turned against marxist nihilism. of course, to do that, european muslims will have to be 'americanized.' i do think this is viable. muslims do believe in social values -- they are against the marxist ideas that there should not be any values. the problem at the moment is that muslimv values aren't enlightenment values, they are pre-renaissance values. but that can change. that must change to turn back europe from eating itself.

myself, and two other muslim bloggers are going to discuss this matter. i will provide you a link when we've done so.

i frankly dont think europe is capable of producing such a philosophy. it is exhausted. it has no faith. it has no pride. it can't even give birth, for god's sake. who the hell has negative birth rates?

fjordman, you might be the last echoe of an empty hall. move to america.

Sorry, however that is not the solution, though Fjordman is more than welcome to immigrate to the US if that is his choice. I believe that Europe is the one continent that needs preserving as that is the homeland of WHO we are. This is not an option but a mandatory end result. The US, for all its good, I fear has already been mortally wounded thanks to the Global Marxists, like Bush though there are many others. I do not know exactly what will become of this great nation, though the US that we remember (anyone 40 or older) is gone. Sorry to sound pessimistic, though I feel I am simply realistitic.

I don't recall having ever done this before...giving unqualified kudos to a post, but kudos and congratulations.

I've studied and written about this topic for years, and not only are some of the ideas in this essay seminal, but the argument style and general presentation is superlative.

My only advice would be to define a little more precisely what you mean by "left" and "communism", the mention of which tend to evoke economic factors and give critics a great foothold from which to attack your larger ideas.

You are refering to the totalitarian collectivist aspects of communism of course, written into the multicult assumption that if society is composed of economic classes then the color sceme of those classes is irrelevant.

My only other criticism is that the essay is 40 years overdue.

Anyway, this essay IMO transcends the immediate. Clean it up and its on a par with Lee Harris et. al.

In India and Nepal we have been battling a violent Communist revolution (Naxalite revolution)for years with ens of thousands dead - and many more to come. If Communism is dead who killed all these people. Naxalites are "extremist" communists as compared to "moderate" Communist Political parties. We might still end up as the next Soviet Union if the Naxals win - "a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing" - Chamberlain on Czechoslovakia

We have been fighting the "South Asianitis" disease for years. Here is an article written in 2003 about this disease

While America slept -- or rather, while it was going about its business -- Gramscian thinking, like sewage leaking out of a cracked drainpipe into the surrounding soil, has seeped into major sectors of our civil society -- the law, foundations, universities and corporations among others.

what are you talking about? america is a great nation. you want to go back to 40 years ago? i see: missing jim crow are we? get real dude. the whole point about america has been that multiculturalism works when money is in the middle. the whole lesson from europe is that in welfare states multiculaturalism does not work.

talk aboue enlightenment principles all you want homie, but dont forget that the grandaddy of the enlightenment - montesquieu - said that it all came down to money (so did adam smith). you gotta make the europeans into entrepreneurs. you gotta make european muslims into entrepeneurs. to do that, you gotta end the welfare state.

oh, but as i recall, the french protested AGAINST laws that liberate the economy from government control.

everyone wants to sit here and talk about 'how socialism sucks' and how its values are 'diseases' and 'infections' when the real value of socialism is in its ECONOMIC control. socialism is an ECONOMIC system. Offer a different economic system to europe.

Ethnocentrist: I don't think there's any possibility of calling Bush a Marxist. However, stupidity isn't always limited to Leftists, especially not when dealing with immigration. I'll write another essay about that later.

A. Eteraz: europe's future is not in christianity. christianity is dead

Don't be too sure that Christianity here is dead. I won't discount the possibility of a religious revival, triggered in part because of the Islamic threat. Islam cannot solve any problems, it can only create new ones.

you gotta end the welfare state.

Finally, something we agree upon. Of course, once the welfare state system collapses in Western Europe, which it will, it will probably trigger civil wars between native Europeans and Muslim immigrants. Muslims view welfare from the infidels as Jizya, and when that "grease" disappears, conflict could well become inevitable.

By the way: You have made so many racist and demeaning comments about Europeans that I don't take you seriously when you denounce others as "racists." You're just another Muslim hypocrite.

Sorry to have been so abrupt with my previous comment. I posted before reading all the posts.

Let me explain. I think Political Correctness should be viewed (and ridiculed) as a religion, not as an ideology:

"Political Correctness is a religion, i.e. a structured belief system based on faith. A religion need not have a god, although Political Correctness appears to have one. Its god is Hitler, an altogether evil god that is despised by its followers. In this respect Political Correctness is similar to the Aztec religions whose evil gods had to be appeased with constant human sacrifice. The evil god Hitler needs to be kept at bay with constant discrimination against whites.

The doctrine of Political Correctness measures everything against this god, the evil Adolf Hitler. In this religion, everything that Hitler believed in is evil, and everything that he opposed is good. This belief system condenses to two doctrines:

* Non-white minorities are to be worshipped in the morning * The white majority is to be degraded in the evening

And is based on this one cardinal faith:

Whites are oppressors; therefore whites deserve discrimination and racism to redress the imbalance."

Speaking as a religious person, I think it's fair to say that PC and Multiculturalism may have started out as techniques, but they have become religions. Their adherents are increasingly acting like the priestly hierarchy of the 12th century, complete with absolutions, papal bulls and rather contradictory dogmas.

Marxism is still by some referred to as a science, dating back to teh days when it was popular to name a pet philosophy "science" to give it more legitimacy. In those days, when Marxism was born, science was very different to how we understand it today. There wasn't any scientific method; the idea of attempting to test your theory for flaws was quite unknown and would have been laughed at by many of the "scientists" of the age. Back then, the idea was to find proof of your theory, rather than attempt to disprove it. Theories became, therefore, a priori, and scientists worked under the assumption that they were true, but merely lacking proof. Given this attitude it's very easy for a marxist of any stroke (green or red, soft or hard) to find proof of the class war within the pages of a daily newspaper or simply by asking people if they like rich people. They're convinced their idea is true, and anything that disproves it is disregarded.

To a certian degree I can speak as an authority on this, being a man of faith myself. Religion requires a certain amount of suspension of disbelief in order to function, because the supernatural ideas behind religion are often not immediately relevant - or even apparent - in the natural world. In that sense, then, it seems fairly obvious that marxism, multiculturalism and PC are all expressions of a religious fervour. Marxism even has the priomise of a hereafter in the "glorious future" that all true marxists were continually striving to bring about.

Marxism lacks compassion for the individual. It disguises this lack by claiming compassion for "groups": the working classes, or the oppressed minority, but compassion for a group doesn't translate in to compassion for individuals.

Marxism and its offspring also lack reason. They rely on emotionalism as a crutch, appealing to the base instinct whilst claiming to be intellectual. There's no appeal to the higher morals, merely an appeal to human greed: "The bourgois have more than you do, so take it with the blessing of the state", is the refrain of the marxist.

It's interesting that this lack of true compassion, reason, and the overaching greed are exactly what marxists accuse the right-wing of.

Anyway, whilst Marxism and its ilk started out as mere techniques, they have all the hallmarks of a religion, so I think it's fair to call them one.

Thank tou for this wonderful article expressing much of what Europeans should acknowledge, but rarely do. Marxism must be stopped, as it is a serious threat to our very way of life. Marxists are unable to comprehend the difference between racial discrimination and behaviour based discrimination. If we did not discriminate on behaviour, would we allow thousands of murderers walk free?

To say that PC is a religion is to me just an example of conceptual confusion. It is in that sense, in fact, similar to saying that Marxism is a science. To say that "Marxism is based on science" would be a comprehensible (but false) statement, but to say "Marxism is a science" just makes no sense.

However, it is a somewhat complex epistemological topic to describe in detail so I settle with just stating my view without arguing further, especially since we probably are in agreement regarding the truthfulness of statements such as "PC should die" and "Marxism sucks". : )

You look forward to wars between Muslims and "True Europeans" and I'm the racist? Nice.

As for my views of Europe. They are influenced by my hyper-nationalism, hyper-capitalism. Here they are in a nut-shell.

1 - Europe is a failed community. A step above the third world. Corrup (Italy - Parmalat come to mind) and reliant on Tourism (wow!)

2 - European bureacracy is the world's most idiotic. Is this a racist comment?

3 - The EU is an exercise in futility.

4 - It has no original creative thinking to solve its problems. You are great at identifying what's wrong, but know nothing about what to do. Oh wait, you suggested that conflict between Christians and Muslim is coming. Good one Fjordman. That's something worth working for.

5 - I have no respect for people with a negative birth rate. Maybe if you guys would turn off some of that (bad) porn that comes on at 8 pm and get back to MARRYING, kids might come, and you won't have to import illiterate people to do your dirty work, you could, as in the rest of the world, do it yourself.

6 - Seriously, have children. All civilizational declines in all of history are always tied to decadence (Ottomans were producing far less children than the rest of the world when they got overtaken).

7 - Instead of calling all Muslim hypocrites, work with the integrationists and create links between them and American Muslims. Oh I forgot: you rather see a Christian Europe versus Muslim Europe war.

8 - I have a lot of respect for people who write like you do. I have far more respect for people who can suggest something other than war and conflict.

9 - Save Europe for yourself. Otherwise America will have to clean up another mess and I don't want myself or my children having to do it (again).

For all my disagreements and un-politically correct remarks, I like, no, love the fact that you guys are encouraging and promoting such deeply meditative thinking on your blog. Don't know if you do, but if you do consider yourself part of the 'right' blogosphere, I think you are the best. you will note that i do not commentate on a single other 'right' blog.

You

1 - encourage free-thinkers in your comments

2 - make deep posts (even if one vehemently disagrees)

3 - can take criticism

4 - respond to emails

5 - respond to commentators

6 - you have a good handle on the problems that you are trying to address. it's not knee-jerk b.s. i see everywhere else.

7 - keep fjordman around, even if he is misguided, often incorrect, and pessimistic.

8 - do not lose your critical edge. do not sell out to ratings, rankings, link whoring.

9 - pastorius, what's up pimp?

10 - to all those here who i am brash with, im sorry if i hurt your feelings. just trying to be emphatic.

11 - you have no idea what a great service you are providing us all by tackling the socialismization of europe on a consistent basis. might i suggest thinking of creative ways to encourage capitalism in europe? a recent int. herald tribune study reveals that european execs want to start getting paid like us. executives. there is something in that. getting paid more requires making more. making more requires less regulation. look into it.

12 - you could do with the 'proud to be an islamophobe' thing. you have explained many times that it's really targetted to the jihadists, but the slogan doesn't make that clear, and to be quite frank, i have a difficult, no, impossible time promoting your views in most of the blogosphere because of it. while you may not care, I think you should. your stuff will help open other people's minds.

by the way, one thing we should know about theodore darlymple is his book 'white mughals.'

it explores how british colonists in india started to inter-marry with muslim and hindu indians and settle down.

then lord cornwallis was appointed chancellor of india. he, having been defeated by the american colonies, forbade inter-marriage between white british and indian muslim and hindus because he felt that if such behavior continued, india would go the way of america and seek freedom as well.

interesting, no? darlymple is a very flexible thinker and i admire him a lot.

fjordman,

i'd like to see you explore habermas a little bit. contrast him with derrida. i think the (late) Camus - Habermas - solution is the only viable answer for Europe.

Everyone who is willing to discourse in a civil manner is welcome here. I don't have to agree with everything my interlocutor says. Sometimes, people even convince me to change my opinion... ;)

Just keep it PG-13. Use words other than the F-bomb for emphasis. No threats or really nasty name-calling. That's about it.

As for Fjordman -- he's way ahead of us. He's the Dark Prophet of Norway. I think he talks about the coming war because he doesn't see a way to avoid it. You, on the other hand, don't think the war is coming. You two have a difference of opinion. Only one of you can be right.

But, at least, the F-man is no longer a voice crying in the wilderness. He's come into town and is shouting at us from the streetcorner.

There's a hidden twist to the religion approach - at least in the US. The establishment clause of the constitution forbids the teaching of religion in schools. Getting an appelate court to define Political Correctness as religion would crack open the stalioid grip on academia like a sledgehammer

Whatever the approach - and I'm on board with whatever works - it is vital to tear them off the moral high ground. Racism is discrimination or prejudice based on race. Political Correctness is EXACTLY THAT in spades: racism. Its intrinsic anti-white racism is its weak point. It can be attacked with exactly the same gramscian/critical theory techniques that it thrives on. Deconstruct the odious anti-white racial theories that the Politically Correct use to justify their racist discrimination of whites and you break their ideological legs. Make THEM eat some deconstruction for a change and attack THEIR hegemonic ideology, i.e. these three racial theories:

The Unique History of White Evil TheoryThis racial theory holds that "whites cannot evade history". It is a racial theory because it justifies discrimination against a group based on their (Euro-Christian) ancestry alone irrespective of actual participation or consent (in slavery, holocaust, etc.) and therefore denies innocence as a defense.

The Unearned White Skin-color Privilege TheoryThis racial theory holds that "whites cannot evade responsibility". It is a racial theory because it justifies discrimination against individuals based on their (Euro-Christian) ancestry alone irrespective of actual status or financial condition and therefore denies innocence as a defense.

The White Majority Deference TheoryThis racial theory holds that "majorities must serve minorities unless the minority is white". It is a racial theory because its discriminatory logic applies exclusively to whites. For example, suggesting the reverse, that white minorities in South Africa or Detroit should have not equal but superior rights is widely considered insane.

They are absolutely, completely and hopelessly dependent on these three racial theories. Just try getting a stalinoid to justify anti-white admission quotas at universities or lack of white student unions or anything anti-white without these precious racial theories of theirs. Good luck no chance.

The point of counter-gramscian tactics is: it worked for them, it can work for us. Fight fire with fire!

A. Eteraz: You look forward to wars between Muslims and "True Europeans"

Nobody in his right mind looks forward to anything like that. I still hope a huge, cataclysmic war can be avoided, but I'm afraid there are some countries, France in particular, that are so far gone that there is already a de facto civil war brewing.

Muslims can never live in peace with their non-Muslim neighbors anywhere on earth. Judging from their actions in Western countries so far, I fail to see how this will turn out any different here.

Europe is a failed community. A step above the third world.

Gee, I wonder why there are millions of Muslims quite literally dying to get in here, and why half of all Arab youths say that would like to move here. Could it be that, despite the fact that Europe of today has many flaws, flaws which I never hesitate to point out, it is still vastly superior to virtually any Islamic country? Have you ever wondered why that is the case?

I can make another post later about practical steps to take. For now, completely stopping any kind of Muslim immigration, pulling out of the UN Convention for refugees, expelling any Muslim who even whispers about Jihad, banning the veil in schools etc would be a good start. I just fear this will be too late for some countries.

He's seen Yugoslavia disintegrate and the parallels he draws with the US are chilling. The best part are his lists of "milestones" to civil war. This was written some time ago and watching them roll by one by one is uncanny.

If you read this book you'll know more about the US and where it's heading than 99% of Americans.

Leave the BBC alone. No, don't but do subject it to more rigorous criticism than that levelled by Michael Gove, who...appears all over the BBC like a rash. It's easy to find a report/freature/comment one objects to on the BBC (I think its science reporting is rubbish, for instance and currently I think it's giving the British conservatives far too easy a ride) given the volume of its output BUT for its faults it's still a new source I trust in my gut. And as for entertainment: if the Now Show or News Quiz doesn't make you laugh, well check for a pulse. Quality costs, and the BBC is quality. Sorry if that doesn't chime, but sometimes chimes have to be discordant.

While I think you describe an ideology that hides behind Political Correctness that exists, is thriving, and intent on distruction, I'm a little wary of labelling it Marxism.

Yes, I agree that for all intents and purposes, it really is a form of Marxism. But, when you describe these PC ideology and then label it Marxism, I fear that people tend to dismiss you as just another whacko right winger. That's fine with the true believers among the PC ideologs dismiss you, but the vast majority of people don't think about these things as thoroughly as you do and in reality are looking for others to tell them how and what to think.

The PC ideologs gain traction with this vast group of shallow thinkers when they can say, "Look, here is another right wing whacko that thinks everything that is good and caring and helpful to people is just Marxism."

I have found, though, that people do respond to the simply label "politically correct." The PC ideologs at a minimum wince and often get angry, even violent, when you call them what they are - PC. But, the vast group of shallow thinkers, believing themselves to be deep, thoughtful, and educated, get a little nervous about the implication that they are lumped with anything PC. They do so privately, and follow the PC mind control in public, but nevertheless are very uncomfortable with it.

But, perhaps I'm just worrying about nothing. For sure, whatever you want to call it, it is important to keep pointing out to people the code words used by the PC ideologs. "Multi-culturalism," "tolerance," "diversity," "sensitivity," are some important ones.

Often overlooked is the term "social justice," a favorite of orthodox Women Studies departments around the country. Social justice simply means "punish men and whites." But, it gets thrown about because who can argue with the word "justice." We all like to think justice will be served. But, what many people don't realize that when combined with the word "social," it means social reconstructionism.

Of course, nobody from the PC ideologs really wants to discuss what the replacement for Western culture will be once it has been torn down and reconstructed. You might get some vague terms here and there, and plenty of "multi-cultural" utopian talk. The PC ideologs are loath to admit, however, that nature abhores a vacuum. Power will concentrate and fill the void.

Islamic extremists are smart enough to realize this. They will go along with any PC ideolog claims that racism, etc. is what "made" them the way they are. And, they are happy to do the "social justice" dance. In the end, however, they are hoping that the West will kill it's own core, create a vacuum, and they can then step in.

5 - I have no respect for people with a negative birth rate. Maybe if you guys would turn off some of that (bad) porn that comes on at 8 pm and get back to MARRYING, kids might come, and you won't have to import illiterate people to do your dirty work, you could, as in the rest of the world, do it yourself.

6 - Seriously, have children. All civilizational declines in all of history are always tied to decadence.

The UK, France, and Germany are among some of the most densely populated countries in the world (# of people per square mile).Japan is number 4, the UK is number 9, Germany is number 10, Italy is number 13, and France number 21. They even outpace China, although they are behind Bangladesh and Pakistan (hardly hotbeds of up and coming economies). It seems a negative population adjustment in these countries could open up some much needed breathing room.

BTW, having a high birth rate is not always the sign of a healthy vibrant society....witness Pakistan, Yemen, or Saudi Arabia (who also happen to be the largest consumers of internet porn in the world).

Steve:"Political Correctness is a religion, i.e. a structured belief system based on faith. A religion need not have a god, although Political Correctness appears to have one. Its god is Hitler, an altogether evil god that is despised by its followers. In this respect Political Correctness is similar to the Aztec religions whose evil gods had to be appeased with constant human sacrifice. The evil god Hitler needs to be kept at bay with constant discrimination against whites."

This is very interesting - it explains why in UK schools, almost the only history teaching still taught is 'The Story of Hitler'. I see now - it's a form of Religious Education!

Iguana:"While I think you describe an ideology that hides behind Political Correctness that exists, is thriving, and intent on distruction, I'm a little wary of labelling it Marxism.

Yes, I agree that for all intents and purposes, it really is a form of Marxism. But, when you describe these PC ideology and then label it Marxism, I fear that people tend to dismiss you as just another whacko right winger."

Funnily enough, this I suspect is more a problem in the USA than in the UK. In UK academia especially, traditional Marxism is so widespread and open as to be normal, so it's hardly a stretch to talk of "cultural Marxism". It also has the virtue of being an accurate term. The USA has the problem that there are relatively few open Marxists, and few people even on the right understand the extent to which Marxist dialectic does influence leftist thought in the USA.

the only history teaching still taught is 'The Story of Hitler'. I see now - it's a form of Religious Education!

Yes. Steve is dead right, in the secular liberal constellation Hitler replaces Satan, and Nazis the ultimate evil, while the concentration camp is hell.

I believe this to be rather dangerous. Mystifying the real Third Reich hides the actual motives and processes that lead to its establishment and excesses, as well as tending to blank out the horrors of communism and the USSR. Its easy to cry "Never Again!" (a popular way of ending arguments), but the actual important events (centered around the actual Nazis, not the cartoon version) are ignored beside the received version of the holocaust (centered around the Jews). I mean - how many people have heard of Hans Frank? Anne Frank? Which of the two is important to understanding the nazi era, its policies, mechanisms and personalities? (hint - its not Anne)

I'd have to agree with Joshua that cultural marxism isn't long for this world. But I'd take it one step further. Just as economic marxism was superseded by something worse, so will cultural marxism give way to a far deadlier pathogen: extinctionism.

I explore the topic more (in the first post of!) my blog, Cracks in the Sanitarium:http://cracksinthesanitarium.blogspot.com/(sorry for making it necessary to cut and paste, but I'm really rotten with HTML.) The post is basically an expansion of my remarks waaaay up at the top of this thread.

"largest “anti-racist” organization in the country, SOS Rasisme, was heavily infiltrated by Communists and extreme Leftists. They infiltrated the organization in the late 1980s and early ’90s, in other words, during the downfall of Communism in Eastern Europe. They went directly from Communism to Multiculturalism, which should indicate that at least some of them viewed Multiculturalism as the continuation of Communism by other means. It speaks volumes about the close connection between economic Marxism and cultural Marxism. They just have different means of reaching the same ends."

This is very typical. Every "anti-racism" or "diversity" or "multicultural" advocacy group I know of has this history.

"...Justice is determined by who you are and not by what you have done.” “Political correctness is an intellectual sickness..."

Reality already:

PLURALISM OF JUSTICE

- we are not meant to have equal rights in the same community – Nonsense!- vi skal ikke være lige for Retten I det samme samfund – Nonsense!

Nordic and British values of rights reject this without any possible compromise and without any hesitation at all:

Conference in Istanbul:

http://www.hyd.org.tr/

Nearly 600 democracy activists, practitioners, trade unionists, scholars, policy makers, and others engaged in promoting democracy around the world. Please note that participation is by invitation only.· Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation—TESEV:http://www.tesev.org.tr/· Helsinki Citizens Assembly shows the same site as does the first link on this site:http://www.hyd.org.tr/

"What its varieties share in common is the claim that the disagreement between judgements is only an apparent one. I argue, however, that critical pluralism masquerades either as relativism or anti-realism. I examine a number of pluralist proposals, including one that attempts to reconcile pluralism with critical monism, and argue that they are inadequate to their advertised task. Finally, I sketch a solution employing dialetheic logic that captures both intuitions about these cases: that sometimes, judgements about artworks can truly conflict and jointly be true."

Conference in Aarhus, Denmark:

26 Mars 2004 : Max Weber’s topicalityThe project is partly theoretically founded on Max Weber’s theory on the patrimoniale control partly on an extended concept of Justice and the theory on pluralism of Justice, where more parallel systems of Justice excist in the same community.

- Denmark perhaps on the front edge for good or for bad, who knows)

http://www.ps.au.dk/showpage.asp?lPageID=543 (in Danish)

An example more from Denmark about the municipality Høje Taastrup that have a consultant employed with practical Pluralistic Justice efforts related to bigamy,“killings of honour” and alike.

An translated extraction: ”Justice of Pluralism implies that formation of Justice does not entirely happens by (democratic selected) legislators, but formation and use of Justice originates from other centres of sources:

Yes, please discuss practical steps. The diagnosis is in, what's the cure? Is there one?

Take heart. Cultural marxism is not invulnerable. There are plenty of groups that largely despise it:

Boys raised in schools that treat their gender as a disease. University students who go deep in debt to endure four years of stalinism and learn nothing save that which they teach themselves. Women made to feel subhuman if they elect to make their career the raising of their children. Christians whose faith is spat upon at every opportunity, while they watch those who spit with the most enthusiasm bow and scrape before muslims.

The anger inside these groups grows. Cultural marxism will not survive it. One day we will wake up, and nothing will be more disrespectable than hating the West merely because it is the West. We will have realized their only power comes from us listening, and we will simply ignore them.

We'll know this particular battle has been one when PC is a universal pejorative.

Zach, I had to delete your comment because the URL in it messed up the post width. Please make long URLs into links to avoid this problem.

Here's what Zach said…

A very good post Fjordman, it is clear you did a great deal of research.

Political correctness has both an exoteric and esoteric level to it. For the masses, there is the exoteric teaching of tolerance, equality, anti-racism, etc. At the esoteric level however, which no doubt includes a great deal of former/current communists and leftists, there is a great deal more realization of who the "bad" guys are, with no need for the propaganda-values. It never ceases to amaze me when people act perplexed by, or shout "hypocrite!" at, instances of PC discriminating against certain (or a certain) group(s). The talk of equality et al is just sugar to make the medicine go down easier, but real PC is discriminative and designed to persecute some over others.

At this time, PC is coercive, but only at the individual level. If you violate it, say at work, you will face consequences roughly proportional to your violation. There is nothing anything an individual can do about it, besides being a martyr. Any effective resistance must come in the collective, not at the individual level.

Can we wait out PC? I don't think we can, though I realize some people are hoping that we can.

PC doesn't have to convert us, it just has to keep us inert and paralyzed until the reinforcements arrive.

Right now, in the US where the situation is perhaps among the most progressed in the Western World, among recent births about 45% are from minority mothers (i.e. other than non-Hispanic white). When factoring in births to non-Hispanic white with a minority father, the figure is probably around ~47%. Also, if I am correct Arabs and a few others who we would normally consider "minorities" are counted as non-Hispanic white. Nor do these figures factor in people currently born in third world countries that will immigrate to the US in the next 20 years. In any case, this is what I mean by reinforcements. (Source: US Department of Health and Human Services, 2004 preliminary data)

Once more for emphasis: PC doesn't have to convert us, it just has to keep us inert and paralyzed until the reinforcements arrive.

This is a very very depressing situation; frankly I don't know if all of the West is going to survive. Most Americans don't want violence--and I count myself first among that group. But in 20 years, what options are we going to have that we will want to pick from? My guess is that barring rather rapid change here, by the mid 2020's we are going to see emigration from the US into Canada, Alaska, Oz, and a few other places, by large numbers of Americans. America as we know it is going to become Brazil, North, I fear.

I think that Europe still has a chance; it at least has something to hold onto, namely a sense of history and identify, not to mention much better numbers.

Pressed for time and i'm not sure anyone ay have pointed this out already, but it is not a coincidence that political correctness started making headlines and imposing itself on college campuses in the early nineties right after the Soviet Union collpased. The marxists just adjusted tactics in that since the Soviet Union was no longer a lodestone for marxist values externally, more energy could be focused on destroying western culture from the inside and the best tool for that is white guilt about, oh, pretty much everything.

About the Dalrymples: Theodore is the pen-name of Anthony Daniels. William Dalrymple is a Scotsman living in New Delhi. He's an acclaimed writer.

According to the Wikipedia entry, "Dalrymple is an active opponent of what he describes as, "the rise of Islamophobia in the west". He has written articles and spoken in favour of a less extreme, historical approach to the contemporary issues involving Islam. Dalrymple is also a critic of the state of Israel in its dealings with the Palestinians.".

Too many people are ignorant and intellectually lazy. They twist and shout (calling it "argue" will violate the verb) in lables without having the slightest clue as to what's behind those lables. There is no true understanding, beyond some maudlin sentimentality, as to what Marxism or Leninism or Socialism really means, and the logical economic contradictions and fallacies within such statist "religions" are glossed over. Try mentioning that the material difference to the victims of statism is a matter of chance, and not necessarilly the brand of statism, you're more likely to start another round of ". . . but communism is better than nazism" or some variation on that theme.

What all of these statisms have in common - and what to a great extent drives statism - is a violation of the tenth commandment: Thou shalt not covet. Get enough people together to conspire to relieve someone else of their property, and you have the reason for the existence of the state. The latter will then proceed to violate at least one (but probably more) of the other commandments: Thou shalt not steal. Of course it will be done in the name of "democracy", "the greater good", "the betterment of man/woman/society, etc." or some other noble-sounding sentiment.

The perception of the "moral high ground" is more often than not a delusion. There is no higher morality than respecting property rights. Denying the latter amounts to rationalizing theft

So your basic problem is that after the Cold War ended "we" did not round up all the Reds and do what exactly with them? You claim the Nazi's were eliminated, yet we see more right wing extremism now than in recent memory. It is rhetoric and weak rhetoric at that to suggest that the neo-Liberal EU is in any way related to a socialist government.

You do not have to be a Marxist to have an analysis of the Islamist problem has its roots in colonialism and ongoing racist confrontation.

And it is absolutely fascist to link socialists and Marxists with Islamic terrorism to serve your own hateful ends.

Very good article. I never did trust that the USSR was over. Just look at Putin. Look at our universities, educational system, Democrat Party, Communist Party (in Washington State where they do NOT have to disclose their contributors for fear of retaliation!), etc.

I never was politically correct, and I refuse to ever become so. Thank you for the reinforcements. Have a very Happy Independence Day.

We must keep spreading the word about the left being the true racists and fascists. Convert our well-meaning, brainwashed dhimmidiots-in-training friends. Eventually some will tell their friends and so on...

It is true that marxist rhetoric and thinking has penetrated every single stratum of our society and it should not surprise us that it does. In the nineteenth century, marxism was very active in countries that were industralizing at a fast pace and lacked a tradition of democratic or strong government. These countries were Germany, Spain, France and Italy, later Russia. In other countries where these conditions were not met, like Holland, Belgium or England, marxism developed less strong traditions. Secondly, the Soviet Union was not a real marxist country, although it claimed that until in the sixties of the previous century.

Marxism was een Western branch of thinking from the beginning, not an eastern. It is remarkable that in Russia an marxist movement replaced one authoritarian regime by another, but with marxism it had little to do, except the rhetoric and thinking. Not the acting and therefor it collapsed under its own discrepancies. It is only just in this line of reasoning that there didn't follow a demarxification. The opportunists simply took up another shape to do their thing, as everywhere else happens.

This leads me also to the conclusion that marxism did not survive in the West. The political branch of marxism in the West, the so called eurocommunism has died indeed and some of the politicians involved duely apologized for their historic mistakes, but that meant little harm to the broader movement. The soft marxism of the West, or rather PC, or cultural marxism, has a mainly cultural meaning and has developed itself almost entirely apart from political institutions. Therefor it can hardly be harmed when political institution that shares the same goals and ambitions falls apart. Christianity did not disappear when the Roman Empire fell apart.

The Enlightenment is of course the real ideological cradle of cultural marxism, allthough some elements already appears in the writings of earlier thinkers. Enlightenment had a real two sided face: one side rational, pro-Europeans, elitist, progressive, full of confidence. The other face is irrational, anti-Europe because of its hopelessly antiquated institutions. We should not forget that the horrors of the Religious Wars (1520-1665) were well remembered because of the conservative catholic kings. On top of that, in most countries government was settled by a small elite of nobility and clergy. Even in 'progressive' states as Venice and Holland the nobility was replaced by rich traders. The essence was in all cases the same: the system can be described as an oligarchy that used its power to make the entry to power so exclusively as possible. Intellectuals as Diderot and Voltaire had to live in an environment that gave them recognition on an intellectual level, but not on a social level. This living contradiction was especially felt in France, where the myth of the noble savage started. It was based on the stories of the trappers in America. There was a new World without the tiresome institutions of the old world. People were savage, yes, but also free. In the century between Hobbes and Rousseau the savages were turned noble.This does not necessarily mean that the European conception of America changed, but maybe much more the consciousness of its own antiquated situation.

The independent development of PC began with Franz Boas around 1900, when he and some of his contemporaries projected leftist ideas on social science. This led to a new way of thinking, which we nowadays know as multiculturalism, cultural relativism and the like. Europe's power had been declining, seen from an American point of view, since Napoleon imposed a New Order on Europe. France and Spain had lost the main part of their overseas empires, although France sought and found compensation in Africa. The Fleet treaties around the end of the century made clear that Europe was no longer in a position to impose its will by power. This became apparent in the period 1914-1945, the era when Europe lost finally its control over the world. De USA was eager to take over, although in a different sense. The decolonisation was the last fase of the hegemonial decline of the Old World. From then on, it had to content itself with the rol of ally to its former colony, the USA.

Boas did not pick his idea from nowhere. The USA had realized early in the 19th century that it was more than a match for the European powers. The confrontation with Japan (1853) and Spain (1898) acknowledged this position. Underneath this growing power there was a different ideology. The Restoration in Europe widened this ideological gap with the USA. While the Revolution Year 1848 narrowed the gap, the East of Europe remained within the firm grip of multi-national empires: Austria, Russia and the Ottoman Empire. All these three would dissolve under the force of modernization. Nevertheless the pattern of conservatism underneath remained largely, until the recent comedown of the Wall. In both cases, the USA had every reason to frown upon the more than cautiaus attempts of the Old World to modernize itself without treading too many toes. It took another war and an USA army to finally institutionalize modern election systems in Europe. This striking difference in development could not escape scientific interpretation. Since immigrants in the USA carried with them the same cultural as those who stayed behind in Europe, the difference could only be explained by the circumstances. A better example of a social experiment could not be wished for. The old institutions should only be replaced by modern ones and the Universal Human Nature would take its due course. In the case of the USA it was easy to explain the succes partly by the 'multicultural' caracter of the immigrants. Some were protestant, others catholic and even orthodox, but they all turned American.

The denomination 'ideological mercenaries' for the Left of the West is more fitting than ideological orphans, but not yet precise enough. Indeed, they are more dangerous precisely because they hide their true goals under different labels: environment, human rights, anti-racism, and so on. They claim quite some diffuse ideals, using marxist rhetoric and vocabulary to make use of the existing ideological environment. Their commitment to marxism is almost always purely for making easy acceptance and to avoid having to do their own thinking, that is opportunism. As long as the eastern marxism was there for inspiration, they came along; when it became clear that the train had reached the end of the track, they quickly jumped of.

They have realised quite some time ago that marxism is not a viable economic alternative to capitalism. Even in Holland the PvdA realized during de 90's that capitalism had to function, otherwise there would be no funds left for all these millions dependant on sociale wellfare. From the early 70's the Left has started a new line of thinking and acting.In the period from 1962 to 1973 it became clear that the East could not invade Western Europe; that it would not start the worldrevolution; that it had failed in the Middle East just as much as the West had failed. The political stalemate and the quickly dwindling birth rate in both powerblocs could not have other than enormous impact on the following generation. Set off against the increasing speed of population growth in the poor part of the world, there could only be one outcome. By the 80's it had become clear that neither the NATO nor the Soviet Union could possibly win the struggle.

Because the Left in the West always had a mainly cultural foundation, it was not difficult to shift their focus to the multiculturalist themes that now have become so common. Multiculturalisme has become almost a banality. It has no founding father, no scripture to refer to, no political party of significance, no international body that acts as an intermediary. It does not need that. The general sense of the ideals of the multiculturalists makes them a very difficult target. The mix of vocabulary from the Enlightenment and marxism makes them conservative and progressive at the same time. The use of internationaly esteemed NGO's has established a body of services, which is regularly appreciated by the countries it continually criticises.

The year 1973 serves as a milestone because it turned out to be the opening of a new relationship between the West and the muslim world. Europe greedily changed its tactics and accepted a growing immigration from mainly muslim countries. These countries still are, next to southern Africa and southern Asia, the only part of the world with a high birth rate. The muslim world however, otherwise than southern Africa and southern Asia, suffers from an exhausted environment and dwindling petroleum revenues. They are confronted with the choice between poverty or emigration.

The lack of historic awareness of Naomi Klein is emblematic for the opportunistic attitude of multiculturalists. The moslim world has tried many times during the 19th century to introduce modernization. The main attemps took place in Egypt and Turkey, the most important powers of that period. These attempts failed for a number of reasons as: lack of preparation, lack of means, lack of middle class, education and cooperation of the clergymen. In fact these negative factors are still present. Where the internal conditions are insufficient, no external effort can make up for the difference. Qutb reacted more on the modernization efforts of his contemporaries than on those coming from outside. To this very day this is the line of thinking of many muslims, like Osama.

The lopsided worldview of multiculturalists is not the product of study or observation. It is the product of their own subjective mind. It acts upon the conservative conviction that Europe has reached the end of ideology and seeks to blend this with the progressive idea of reaching out to less fortunate people. In stead of exporting commodities and wellfare they want to export ideas and wellbeing, in order to reach an intellectual and ideological equality around the world. The material side of things will, of course, follow in due course, which is the real end of this endeavour.In this sense the multiculturalists are just as conservative as the capitalists they seek to oppose. In their limited sense of economics, riches have the character of a zerosumgame. Europe could only become more rich by stealing from colonies, which therefore became poorer. The name of the game was capitalism. The same process caused the downfall of the intellectuals, because they were swept from their pedestals by the technicians. Nowadays, a chemist is much more important than a clergyman; reading literature has become a dull activity; the knowledge of Latin and Greek obsolete. Intellectuals have only one resort and that is politics. It is the only way of regaining a bit of their lost importance.

For the intellectuals the good Europe would be an old Europe, but under the guidance of the intellectuals who claim the role of the highpriests in the new brave world. Human rights is the perfect new cloak to envelop the ideals of Enlightenment, regain the cultural superior position of Europe in the world and neutralize the evergrowing power of technics.

In order to facilitate the right ideological environment at home, it was necessary to recognize the equality of cultures not only on an academic level, but also on the most popular and everyday level. Multiculturalism has a predominantly cultural and intellectual character, whereas marxism is almost exclusively aimed on economics, which is understandable because of the situation in the East. This relationship is like the word 'electron', which is used both in chemics and in physics, but in very different environments. Most PC people are shallow copycats, who recoil from the inflexibility and fatality that are so familiar with marxism.

As Fareed Zakaria points out in his book The future of democracy, any society that reaches a certain wellfare needs to develop a middle class and therefore democracy. It is not possible to rule a complex society by centralized government, as the example of the Soviet Union has proved. A complex society needs education in the modern sense, mutual respect and freedom of opinion. For this reason the environmental issue will be solved within ten or twenty years by technical solutions, which will largely take the fuse out of the intellectual argument.

The other half of the multiculturalist movement, the human rights, is tougher to defuse. This line of thinking has developed quite some vocabulary, like Eurocentrism (who is going to blame the Arabs for their Meccacentrism?) and new sciences like 'multicultural psychology'. They managed to equip the academic services with field workers that managed to claim ever growing funds. The tactics are based on largely three topics: capitalism is evil because of its distributive power is not based on convictions, knowledge or equality; equality should be explained in a much broader sense than is usual in Europe; and that Europe is ethically wrong because of WW II.These three arguments aim to alienate people from their national cultures into an European state. The common demonator of these three tactics is an attitude that I call 'selfracism'. Some body who practises selfracism, alienates himself from his national culture in order to gain a higher state of being. The selfracist often claims a broader identity (European; cosmopolitan; citizen of the world) and is very eclectic in how to consider the past. His description will show that European culture essentially was good, but has been spoiled by industrialization and capital. Selfracism is inverted racism. Somebody wants to outwit the adversary by this attitude and preempt himself from being an aim for either other groups or the peer group. He can step out and in both circles any time he wants and always claim that he is part of it. This attitude is typical marxist.

How profound. Well done. It is unfortunate that many people are unable to make obvious connections. Some people lack logic and common sense. Dr Gerald L. Atkinson wrote some very good essays on this subject. Also essential reading

Dymphna, that voluntary, help the community thing is something that some people in my country are trying to restore and it was pretty much alive in the interwar period - I wish I would have lived then. This is one of the things that communism destroys that takes generations or great wars to rebuild within a people. I guess shipping off foreigners inside a community leads to a similar effect to a different degree.

PacRimJim, in case you didn't figure it out, the US is in a far worse situation. Actually, the engine of cultural Marxism is over there, not here. And I don't get how you really help us considering that you promote the ethnic cleansing of Europeans, the last place being Yugoslavia.

unaha-closp, you don't need low cost labour to sustain economic growth. Actually, industries can just move overseas now, you don't need the people to move in the country where you live. The right wing wants lots of immigrants because they're not really right wing, they're right-liberals. Oh, and another thing, without left wing crap, Europe would have healthy birth rates and yet another thing, you don't need to have immigrants. You can bar immigrants from being citizens or their offspring and give them work visas. When it's solved, you remove the work visas and get rid of them. Problem solved. Let's guess who would have objected to this?

alfonso, your little essay just shows that we imported the liberal-universalist disease from you and our problems stem from the US military invasions in Europe. lol

Eteraz, white Americans have the same birth rates as Europeans. If Europe was 35% non-white, we would have higher birth rates than you(and the marriage situation isn't better in the US). lol. Also, the US was great because it had a largely white population whose culture was the norm. The US was never multicultural until recently. Another thing, ever since the 1970s, you spend your ancestors inheritance, you're not that great. A person caring more about it's own people isn't racism, by the way. It's funny, but you are using the PC speech that this post is about. As the US will become more Mexican, it will start to resemble Mexico. Also, you don't become European by moving here. You either are European or not and all these immigrants aren't European and they will never be European. lol. I won't even bother with your statements since they're a bunch of logical fallacies. Maybe you should drop the liberal rhetoric and read some 101 logic books. Also, you did a horrible job at fixing Europe, considering all the Marxism was imported from there after WW2 and you destroyed the European power structure in WW1 due to your buddy Wislon which led to WW1.

eatyourbeans, in those places where we still are patriotic, we define patriotism by loving your nation, not state and as an immigrant, you won't be fully part of that nation.

Steve, racism is prejudice combined with hatred. Discrimination isn't racism - that's actually the politically correct definition of it. I agree about the rest though, I always employ Alinsky when I debate leftists and it's funny how effective it is. A friend got some leftists to say that the Japanese were worse than Hitler in WW2 with something similar, which was quite funny. And the US can pull off a Yugoslavia. It's not like some other superpower will bomb you for ethnically cleansing the ethnically cleansers. lol